Sacred Weapons of the Mass

Four of the implements of the Gnostic Mass are
pivotal to the Graal romances: the Lance, Graal, Sword
and Paten. The Christian context for these items as holy
relics divided them between the respective
discorporations of Jesus and John the Baptist. The Lance
was to have pierced Jesus' side during the Crucifixion,
as the Graal, fresh from the dishwasher after the Last
Supper, was used to catch the water that then gushed out
of the wound. (That wound is typically in the form of the
yoni when rendered iconographically. Jesus as the ichthus
is already symbolically related to the kteis. The
cross itself may represent the lingam. Sunday schoolers
take note!) The sword was used for the decapitation of
John the Baptist, and the Paten is the platter on which
his head was presented to Salome.

Needless to say, the Christian associations are of
academic interest to the Thelemic congregant. There are
several ways to read that ternary of sacred weapons as
applied in the Mass.

Weapon

Element

Emanation

Sign

Tarot

Calendar

Lance

Fire

Light

Aries

IV. The Emperor

Vernal Equinox

Graal

Water

Love

Cancer

VII. The Chariot

Summer Solstice

Sword

Air

Liberty

Libra

VIII. Adjustment

Autumnal Equinox

Paten

Earth

Life

Capricorn

XV. The Devil

Winter Solstice

These correspondences are tightly interwoven, and
principally refer to the entry of the Sun into the
cardinal signs.

Of keener academic interest is the
role played by the Christian relics in the Crusades which
saw the foundation of the Templar Order. John the Baptist
was considered the patron saint of the Order. His feast
day was June 24th, matching the summer solstice as well
as Christmas did the winter.

The Sacred Lance was discovered during the First
Crusade by means of the dreams and visions of Peter
Bartholomew, a peasant man-at-arms. He told leaders of
the Crusade that he had been instructed to relate the
location of the Lance to them by Jesus and St. Anthony.
In one of the most well-documented events of the First
Crusade's trip to Jerusalem, a metal lance head was
unearthed from long-undisturbed ground beneath the high
altar of the Church of St. Peter in Antioch. This
acquisition of the Lance by the Crusaders took place in
1098 e.v., about 20 years before the official founding of
the Templar Order in 1118.

But from its first discovery, the Lance was a relic
that was brought repeatedly into battle, usually in the
vanguard as the symbol of the God-ordained might of the
Crusader Kingdom of Jerusalem. In that function it would
often have been in the midst of Templar Knights, who
would usually form the shock troops in a Christian
military advance.

The Graal has been frequently and intimately
associated with the Templars, who constitute its
custodians in many of the early Graal romances. Wolfram
von Eschenbach's Parzival is a seminal account of
the Graal milieu. Eschenbach cited his source as
"Kyot de Provence," probably none other than
Templar propagandist Guiot de Provins. Parzival is
also noteworthy for its advocacy of tolerance between
Christian and Muslim.

The Graal romances also assign a particular Sword to
accompany the Graal and Lance. Details vary, but the main
feature of the Sword is that it is broken, and requires a
particular magical operation for its repair. Of course,
the Templars as warrior monks were hardly unfamiliar with
swords.

As mentioned before, the Templars were devoted to John
the Baptist, whose special relics are therefore relevant.
One of the accusations and confessions in the heresy
trials of the Templars was that they maintained a
"cult of the head." An image of a disembodied
human head, possibly named Baphomet, was alleged to be an
object of Templar worship. When the Plate or Dish occurs
in the Graal romances (rarely), it sometimes is carrying
a glorious head--not neccesarily identified as that of
John the Baptist.

All this is but to merely scratch the surface with
regard to the mysteries of these "hallows," as
the Graal relics are sometimes called.